Professor Dr. Gang Yao of the University of Missouri received the gold award for the development of a portable device that screens for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism in young children. The noninvasive test reveals information about the brain based on how the pupil reacts to a short flash of light.

Professor Dr. Irving Bigio of Boston University won the silver award for developing a minimally invasive imaging technique that measures changes in the optical birefringence of brain tissue. It could be used to study and help treat neuropathies such as epilepsy and stroke.

The bronze award went to Colorado State University for a proposal from professor Dr. Azer Yalin to develop lightweight, mid-infrared sensors to track methane leaks from unmanned aerial vehicles.

Europe

Professor Dr. Thomas Halfmann of the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany received the gold award for work on optical memory storage. His project is capable of trapping information encoded in light pulses for up to a minute in an optical crystal.

Postdoctoral scholar Mikkel Brydegaard and his team at Lund University in Sweden received the silver award for developing lidar for monitoring atmospheric fauna, particularly insects.

Professor Dr. Claudio Lazzari and his team at Francois Rabelais University in France won the bronze award for analyzing polarization patterns attractive to tsetse flies. This information will aid development of traps to help control the spread of disease transmitted by insects in Africa.

Asia

Professor Dr. Masahiro Motosuke from Tokyo University of Science received the gold award for research into microchips for detection of light scattering, which can contribute to the development of portable flow cytometry systems for physicians.

Jinmyoung So from Chonbuk National University in Korea won the silver award for research into optical traps for ultrafine particles for use in a spectrometer.

The bronze award went to Yuen Hong Tsang and his team from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for development of a system to treat and image cancer cells using fluorescent nanoparticles.

Inspiration Award

Shahid Haider, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo in Canada, received the 2014 Norman Edmund Inspiration Award for his work developing a handheld imager that eases diabetes monitoring in children. The system uses filter assemblies, corrective optics and manipulating optics, to simultaneously captures multiple polarization states of the eye to infer a patient's blood glucose concentration.